Neediest Families Fund: S-T scribe says help 'meant the world to me'

Thursday

Dec 22, 2011 at 12:01 AMDec 22, 2011 at 8:19 AM

Each year, as The Standard-Times profiles those in need as part of its Neediest Families Fund campaign, we hear the stories of how these families and individuals reached the point where they needed some assistance during the holiday season. They're often sad, sometimes inspirational and always deserving.

TIM WEISBERG

Each year, as The Standard-Times profiles those in need as part of its Neediest Families Fund campaign, we hear the stories of how these families and individuals reached the point where they needed some assistance during the holiday season. They're often sad, sometimes inspirational and always deserving.

What we don't hear is what happens to them after they receive that assistance. Do their lives get back on track? Does the fund only help them through one dark period, only to have another waiting around the corner?

There's some skepticism about how much good one simple holiday fundraising drive can do, but I'm here to tell you that there are people who do take these experiences and the help they get from the Neediest Families Fund and turn their lives around for the better.

I know these success stories exist, because I am one.

During my childhood, I was houseless on a few occasions. I won't say "homeless," because we always remained together as a family — my mother, father, four siblings, a dog and two cats — even if we didn't have four walls and a roof. They never lasted long, only a few weeks or months at a time. We'd take a winter rental, stay in a camper and a tent in a campground for the summer, and then take another winter rental in the fall.

Once, we spent a few weeks all squeezed together in a hotel room. And it wasn't as if we were as needy as some of the families profiled in this space; we could have moved out of the area and found housing, but our family had made a connection to Wareham after arriving there in 1992 and we didn't mind a little adversity in order to remain in the community. While many families might fracture under such circumstances, it only served to make ours stronger.

The first time we were without a house, however, was the hardest. A disagreement with a landlord led to us suddenly having nowhere to go, and my family checked into the Bourne Scenic Park campground in the shadows of the Bourne Bridge. It was the summer before my sophomore year of high school, and I had to leave all my neighborhood friends behind. After spending hours talking on the phone every day, I suddenly was forced to contact all my friends via the campground pay phone. Because the phone took incoming calls, I devised a system in which I'd call my friends' houses collect, and they'd refuse the charges before calling me back on the pay phone. It worked out pretty well.

We didn't own a camper yet, so we borrowed one from a family friend. My dad was working overnights (in addition to working days), so my mom and two youngest siblings slept in the camper. My other two sisters slept in the tent. Being the oldest, I slept in the back of my mom's station wagon.

That first summer without a house extended all the way into mid-October. It got mighty cold that autumn, especially having to wake up in the early morning to shower in the communal campground showers before my dad took us on the 25-minute drive to school. I would wait at the Wareham Free Library after school for my parents to pick me up, never telling anyone about our living arrangements. I couldn't keep it a secret for long, though, and word soon spread throughout school that I had nowhere to live.

We finally found a rental home we could afford just in time; we moved in on the day the campground closed for the season.

By the time the holiday season rolled around, things were more or less back to normal, except for the financial situation. My dad had put everything he had saved into getting us into our house, and the rent was a little higher than we could have comfortably afforded. My parents were struggling to make ends meet, and having to pay for home heating oil had to take precedence over buying Christmas presents.

While we were houseless, my father had applied for assistance from The Salvation Army in order to help us get into a home. They remembered us once the Neediest Families Fund season began, and The Standard-Times contacted my dad about doing a story on our family.

In those days, the people featured in the stories were given different names to keep them anonymous, so nobody ever really knew it was about us. But my dad made sure we all knew that the Neediest Families Fund had helped us out. With the donation, we were able to cover heating oil, and my parents could purchase Christmas gifts for the kids. I remember the one big gift I got that year — my first CD player. It might not have been a big deal to most, especially since many kids already had CD players by the mid-'90s, but it meant the world to me.

It wasn't just the Neediest Families Fund that helped us out, either. There were other programs and individuals who stepped forward and offered whatever assistance they could. I remember one teacher/administrator at Wareham High School, whose identity I won't share here, who called me into his office one afternoon. I didn't know him, and even though he was in charge of discipline I was sure I hadn't done anything wrong. But he handed me a name and a phone number and told me to have my father call and inquire about a house for rent that hadn't hit the rental market just yet; that's when I knew that there were plenty of good people left in the world.

I try to take that approach into my daily life today. I help out charitable organizations wherever I can, as a writer, a radio host and as a parent. And no matter what financial crisis may befall me these days, I always make sure the rent is paid first and foremost. I've learned the lessons of homelessness and will never force my wife and son to experience it.

Having once been among the Neediest Families, it still stings a little to read some of the stories of the families we profile. I know what many of them are going through, and what they must endure on a daily basis. I know what a difference a few dollars donated from kindhearted newspaper readers can make.

And I also know that those families and individuals can rise above their current situation and move on to have a better life. I know because I did it.